Luckily the festivities for the new year and christmas have passed; one can find some more time to do some modding. I've been doing further tests and some reading on the intrawebz about lightmaps.

I've found out it's rather easy to do a big UVWmap for lightmap purposes. And got to work to find out if it can be used for my own made areas. It's doable, I only found minor issues on my test room.

1 mesh gets skewed and the lightmap gets misplaced on certain parts. Why this happens isn't really clear to me. Still about that issue. Somehow I fear I'll need to alter my way on how I slice up my model. Which means I'll need to redo the lightmaps

And so far to do 10 tiny lightmaps for my R&B club it takes a big hour... depending on what meshes get rendered... I did 50 meshes in 5 to 6 hours.

It still remains a daunting task to do lightmaps for an area. My biggest concern is that you're so certain something will get f*****d up... And you're looking at redoing stuff again... Urgh, hate my love for 3D x-D

Been awhile since I posted something in here. Has it reasons though, lots of changes in my personal life, which all took their time to get sorted out. Moving in with the misses Q being a big one

Beside that, other hobby things demanded my attention; but, ahum, you're not here to hear my excuses! Q has some minor progress on those new city area models.

Kaurora has been particular good at destroying my area models, so much so, I lost hope of ever getting into the game properly. Though I kept on trying, switching back to an older version, so that means NO lightmaps.

I know, that's a killer, but that's how it is.
Enough letters, picture time

First up, failures & examples of Kaurora mangling my poor models :'(

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Using an older version of Kaurora I found out some meshes caused faults, because of their UVWmaps. I fixed it, well sort of fixed it. All 3D looks like it should. Now only to fix 90% of UVWmaps themselves. But, hey, it's progress!

A shame about the lightmaps, Q, but the areas look amazing as always. Keep up the good work.

I figure I can always add lightmaps later on. But it's a real 'hard' job on my computer to render it all out. I guess game developpers have some heavy duty sets at their offices to do just that sort of thing.

Sad news, somehow Kaurora just truely HATES me. Was working on fixing the textures of my area. And just that somehow broke it... I have no clue whatsoever I have might done wrong...

Uck, at this point I think I'll just call it quits on area modelling for now. I've got a few requests from other modders anyway. I'll focus on those, so I can at least enjoy something being completed and working!

Good news people. I got in contact with MagnusII, the magnificant programming wizard and he adjusted Kaurora again. I was really losing hope, hence my last post here on this thread, to get things working in the game.

So I asked if MagnusII could have a look; and he did. Where before there was a broken model with awfull mangled textures I now have a nearly perfect working model in the game! Just one bottle who's pretty big

You could take it and turn it right side up or down then place it into the side a wall and there you have some Lab chemical chamber. You can always find a way to re use items and textures to bring new life to it. =)
Just a matter of playing with it.

That's a big bottle. Maybe you could use it as scenery or something (or hang it on the wall XD)?

Héhéhé, haven't thought of that. I made some commercial signs for the other area; but not something like that

Quote:

Originally Posted by logan23

You could take it and turn it right side up or down then place it into the side a wall and there you have some Lab chemical chamber. You can always find a way to re use items and textures to bring new life to it. =)
Just a matter of playing with it.

Great job !

Thanks, so far there are no drug labs involved in my little story. It's all about tapes

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canderis

That. Is. Awesome.

Thank you ^_^

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zhaboka

HAHAHAHA that is one huge bottle. I'm glad Magnus could work his magic for you! I hope those glorious lightmaps can be preserved.

I'm pretty pleased aswell Magnus came back and saved the day. I'll be messing about with lightmaps soon enough. Though it's time consuming to render it all out.

Now for an update. Remember the Red&Blue club? I showed off some renders a couple of posts back in time. This time I can show it in the game! Pretty pleased how it looks. It's a bit bright now, due to no lightmaps. But hey, that newer Kaurora is very powerfull stuff.

You'll all have to have some patience for that. I"ll start working on the street area soon enough and that's quiete a beast.

But before that, first a neat preview of the Red&Blue Club with LIGHTMAPS!
And it looks nice, even if I say so myself

It's just so awesome how those lightmaps bring more energy and life to an area. I feel tempted to go back to my Korriban leves and add in lightmaps there aswell. But, first Nar Shaddaa, then other projects

Enjoy the pictures! Do mind, somehow the screenshots where very dark, I had to do some Photoshop magic to make them less dark. But that enhanced the glowing in the screenshots. It's not exactly like that in the game, but it's close enough

Time for another update. You all now the street model I've been working on? Well it's in the game, took me awhile to get it there, it's a huge model, plus it's sliced up into 8 parts. Skybox is missing at the moment and no lightmaps yet, but I can run around smoothly.

Just to kick out some faults in a few meshes here and there, mostly it's the commercial signs that go 'crazy'. Anyway, let me show some snapshots!

For me this seems to be more like the Coruscant underworld, i.e. Coruscant's lower levels. I think it needs a little more dark to it and some long holes that you can fall for hours in. This area would work for both planets because it's so amazing!